Nightshade
by The Great Mikey Weston
Summary: "He no longer scorned the idea that a darker being might be toying with his life, laughing at his misery. He was forced to believe it because it was reality—it was the hell he was living in." Four Swords manga based. Oneshot. Rated T (subject to change) for blood content and violent imagery.


_This is certainly different from my usual Four Swords parody/humor material- a bit of seriously dark writing, this is. It's funny, this story's official completion was nearly four years ago. The reason why I didn't post this sooner is because I was, and still am, a little uneasy about characterization in this fic, because I've never been confident writing the Links. I don't mean like in Insert Epic Title Here, or like in Four Swords Facebook, or even in Anatidaephobia, which was the first SORT OF serious Four Swords fic I posted. I mean in complete IC and non-parody personalities. Tell me what you think anyway (and tell me if you think I should change the rating to M or something)._

_Don't own Four Swords._

_**WARNINGS: **blood content, violent and somewhat creepy imagery, situations typical of the horror genre, loads of angst, mental and emotional torture, possible OOCness (again, I lack confidence in my Links). If you are uncomfortable with any of these,** turn back now.**_

* * *

It was cold, dark, and utterly quiet in the place he was standing in. Not that he knew what place this was, but he knew it was a place, or he could not be standing in it. Or maybe it was more of a rip in dimensions in which he stood, with a floor and walls, so to speak. But there was not much else to view—it was dark, and cold. In fact, his body had gone numb, and he was rooted to the spot, unable to take a step forward, though his torso and head still moved freely. The quiet was unbearable; it felt as though someone had so deeply pressed pillows against his ears that all noise was muffled. And then there was that faint odor in the air that he couldn't quite place, though an unnerving sense of dread in the back of his mind told him he knew the stench well.

The worst thing by far was the dark. While there was nothing for anyone to hide behind or sneak through to hide themselves if they attempted to creep up on him, it still gave him the eerie feeling that he was being watched. It felt as though something was closing in on him from all sides, crushing him in its dark grip as some other being laughed at his pain from somewhere beyond.

Almost scoffing at the ridiculous notion, the violet-clad boy carefully tried to assess the situation. This particular boy was the fourth part of a five-part entity known as Link. He, alongside Green, Red, Blue, and eventually Shadow, had saved their kingdom from an impending darkness that had threatened to swallow all light in the land. The demon had been obliterated with their efforts, and Shadow had actually died in the attempt… but in the sealing of the Four Sword, all five boys had been given a separate form. The others—especially Shadow, who had come from the Dark World and knew not to underestimate darkness—would be a little more cautious about proceeding in this dark place. But he, Vio, had gotten a taste of what it meant to be of darkness, and knew how to handle it.

Or so he thought, anyway.

Without warning, a screech split the air, and he froze in place as several screams sounded with it, rising in an eerie wailing that hammered at his eardrums, the first sound he had heard in however long he'd been stranded in this darkness. He suddenly got the sense, a suggestion of the mind, that he should flee, but he told himself to wait, and reminded himself that he couldn't move, anyway. Still, a test of his feet told him he could in fact move now; and yet, the unfamiliar fear of the unknown dark intensified. Vio took a few steps back, calming his conscience somewhat, but not leaving quite yet. He had a feeling he would end up in the same darkness, no matter where he went.

And suddenly, a breeze blew by in the airless place. All at once, his every instinct screamed for him to run.

_No, not yet! _He argued with himself. _I have to judge my surroundings before I can make a decision. What if running is a bad idea?_

_That doesn't MATTER right now! _The rest of him shrieked in a chorus of terror._ Just GET AWAY FROM THERE!_

With that violent scream of his inner self, Vio snapped, and turned on his heel to sprint away from the wind that now grew stronger, whooshing beside him as if it was trying to capture him, to drag him to his death. Foot slipping, he gasped aloud and fell flat on his back as the wind howled around him, causing his clothes and hair to begin to flap wildly. He tried to sit himself up, but upon touching his palms to the proverbial ground, he came in contact with something wet. He raised a palm to his face and gasped.

_Blood._

He now realized, with revulsion, what he had smelled earlier. Blood coated him, staining his clothes and hair, and streaking his face with the sticky red substance.

_Wait… but for this much blood… the source can't be too far…_

Afraid of what he might find if he looked around further, he hesitantly allowed his blue gaze to swivel across his surroundings, but fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—it did not take long to find where it was coming from. It was from a limp form, and an awful shock jolted his body as he realized it was clothed similarly to him, exactly like him, actually. Except this one was in green.

"_Green!_"

The screams of the wind set his ears ringing as he managed to scramble his way over to his green counterpart, putting his hands on the other's shoulders. He hadn't even begun to shake Green in an attempt to wake him, as he had intended, when his eyes widened at the glazed-over blue orbs that stared blankly, unknowing and unseeing, at him. Vio's gaze traveled to the bloody wound in his chest, the most terrible of many other injuries inflicted on the green hero. He opened his mouth, not knowing what he wanted to say, or if he wanted to speak or scream. The wind's howling died down somewhat, but now it formed cold hissing in his ears.

"_**What are you so shocked about? It was you that did this.**_"

A lump formed in Vio's throat as he gripped Green's shoulders even harder in his sick horror. "I would never do something like this!" he managed to choke out, still unable to tear his eyes away from Green's desperate, horrified expression, still etched into his face even in death.

"_**Oh, you did. Do you remember, Vio?**_"

The darkness around him lightened—albeit slightly—until he could see he was kneeling on a pitch black, rocky surface, hard and cracked. The horizon told him it was night, and smog rose so thickly from somewhere to the point that he could not see the stars. Black-and-scarlet tinted lava boiled around him, and rocks pointed out from the surface of the stone he knelt on. He recoiled, letting go of Green in the process—he recognized the place, but it had been warped to a nightmarish, blackened existence. "This is…!"

"_**Death Mountain. You remember now, I take it?**_"

"I didn't _kill_ him here!" Vio shouted, standing and wildly looking at the overcast heavens. "I never could have done it!I just knocked him out!"

Ominous, sarcastic yet cruel laughter sounded in the air around him. "_**Look around you, so-called hero. Isn't it his blood that stains your hands and clothes?**_ _**…Or is it the blood of another? Whose blood is it you wear like a trophy, Vio? Red's? Blue's? Your **__**father's**__**? **__**Princess Zelda's**__**?**_"

As if on a cue, more bodies, grotesque and mangled, not one of them cleanly dead, appeared on the stone near him. Vio choked on his breath as he stumbled backward, almost stepping on Green's hand in the process. Red's throat had been slit, Blue had been pierced through the stomach, his father looked as though he'd been destroyed from the inside out, and even Princess Zelda's normally-proud form seemed frail as she lay, splayed out on the rock, bloodstained and broken. Vio cried out, out of horror and shock more than anything, a wordless sound of grief. How was it that everyone he cared for was before him, dead and bloodied, while he stood unharmed? "I didn't kill anyone!" he yelled to the heavens, utterly in denial—how could he, he never would have, never could have lived with himself—his voice a little higher than usual as his composure broke. _It can't be, it doesn't make sense… I don't remember…_

The horrible voice laughed once more, a sound that made the violet-clad hero dearly wish for the compressing silence that he had despised barely minutes ago.

"_**You're missing one, you know.**__"_

Vio felt his breath catch. Who else, who else could this voice, this reality, possibly take from him…

"_**Turn around.**_"

Dreading the tone in which the voice spoke, Vio slowly turned and actually did step on Green in his shock.

Shadow.

The raven-haired boy was not spread-eagled, nor horribly disfigured like the other mangled dead he had left behind; but perhaps most painful to see of all the dead yet, he simply laid on the ground like he had when he was dying after breaking the Dark Mirror. His arms were over his stomach; he might've been in a coffin, being laid to rest. Vio numbly, sickeningly took a few steps toward him, feeling his joints shake and lurch as he tried to stagger forward to heavily collapse onto his knees next to his best friend. Looking at him now, the black cloth of his tunic had stifled most of Shadow's blood, but he was—by far—the most badly injured of all the victims of this horrible tragedy, his pale form covered in wounds almost like one might be covered in freckles. What pained Vio the most was that Shadow's ruby eyes were not wide and alarmed like the rest of them, but closed, peaceful, as if he were sleeping. Were it not for the red substance that Vio had seen too much of in one day, still trickling from his lips, just by staring at his face, Vio could almost believe he _was _sleeping. It truly frightened him, seeing Shadow bleed so severely in death, for he almost hadn't even considered that the shadow boy had blood to spill, having never seen any.

"_**Do you know what his last words were?**_"

Vio froze, wishing to cover his ears, and in his desperation he actually did so, but the voice seemed to pound into his very mind, past the hands of the boy despairingly wishing for the pain to stop.

"'_**I forgive you, Vio.'**_"

That was it. His limit far past gone, composure snapping into pieces, he buried his face in his hands and just screamed. Tears of rage and grief streaked white down his red-tainted face, the pain escaping him in the form of pure agony given sound. He couldn't breathe—couldn't think—he clutched at his arms and his torso to the point of breaking the fabric and flesh, trying to find some kind of solace even in pain, but there was nothing left, he was empty, he was dead inside by his own hand, everything was gone. He lifted his face to the heavens, face contorted in grief and barely managed to choke out his words, his voice cracking and broken.

"_Why?!_ Why did this… w-why did _a-any_ of this happen?!"

For once the voice did not answer instantly, and Vio began to think perhaps he would be left alone to his grieving—never mind he didn't remember doing any of this, rational thought would come later, this was torture of the psyche, being forced to relive murders he did not commit, and he didn't know if he wanted answers or if he wanted silence or even death upon himself as it had come to the others. But soon it was decided for him, because the disembodied, _evil_ voice began to speak again.

"_**Let me tell you a story. My story—how I became the king of all Hyrule.**_"

Vio shut his eyes as raw, fresh waves of pain rolled in.

"_**You killed Green here to gain Shadow's trust. You were hesitant, but once he was dead I came to realize, and I told you—you didn't need him. You never did. He was too soft, too gentle hearted to be a true leader. And so his death remained unmourned.**_

"_**Then came Red and Blue… they sought vengeance and I knew how to deliver it. I told them you were imprisoned, not a traitor after all, and that I had a way to bring Green back to life. All they had to do was sneak in and break the Dark Mirror. That they did marvelously… and both of them were dead within the hour, along with Shadow and Vaati. Why let them live once they had served their purpose?**_"

He reeled in pain, feeling sick to his stomach at the sound of the calm, sarcastic tone the voice took, the casual way with which it spoke of his friends' deaths. Vio found himself lowering his head and burying his face in his hands again, shoulders shaking.

"_**Ganon was altogether too easy to subdue once Zelda was brought to use her light to pierce his dark magic, and it plus the power of the Four Sword was far more than enough to destroy him, contrary to whatever you may think. And when all was said and done and Zelda asked where the others had gone… well, it's very annoying when they ask questions you can't answer unless you kill them. However, I did just that—I answered. And I killed her. The only one who stood in my way then was your father, and he wasn't difficult to take by surprise. Afterward… playing innocent, saying Zelda was dead, saying she'd named me as her successor, was all I needed to become king. And who wouldn't believe me?**_"

He swallowed past a lump in his throat as he listened—and began to think, with faint hope, that this was all just a horrible illusion, or a dream. For in this voice's careful explanation he had found one tiny hole, a flaw in the story that would unravel the entire equation. "You're wrong," he said quietly.

"_**How so?**_"

"I never would have allied with you." Vio's voice trembled with anger and still not-yet past grief. "I helped the others kill Shadow even though it pained me because I knew, for the kingdom, it had to be done. And no one would ever believe that the princess named a stranger as her successor."

The voice laughed quietly. "_**Oh, but I'm not a stranger. We were friends a long time, Zelda and I. Honestly, Vio… I thought you were clever… don't you see it yet? Don't you know who I am?**_"

Blue eyes tortured and glazed over with throbbing pain, Vio clutched at his arms as he stared agonizingly down at Shadow's mangled body once more. "So who," he hissed through gritted teeth, shaking, "_are_ you?" He'd had enough of the dark voiced entity's taunting; he no longer scorned the idea that a darker being might be toying with his life, laughing at his misery. He was forced to believe it because it was reality—it was the hell he was living in.

The voice laughed carelessly once more, and dark matter swirled from within the pit of lava surrounding them to float above the stone surface, just in front of where he knelt by Shadow, slowly darkening and forming a humanoid shape much like his own body. Vio's eyes widened as the Link-shaped form took on blonde hair, violet clothes, and deep, haunted, pitch black eyes that gazed at him with the intensity of the darkness he'd stood in not long ago.

The soulless-eyed copy of himself glowered at him with malice, the sides of his mouth curling upward in a nightmarish grin that Vio could never hope to imitate.

"_**You.**_"

Blackness washing over his eyes, Vio swayed on the spot for a few moments, feeling all notion of rational thought finally flicker and die as he clutched at the ground, rocks digging under his nails as his head snapped up to the sky in a final scream to pierce the darkness.

He gasped painfully as he awoke, body heaving with heavy breaths; he looked around wildly for a few moments and took a deeper, calming breath, his tense shoulders relaxing when he realized it had been a dream after all. Upon waking up, he had lifted himself off the mattress somewhat, hands and elbows supporting him as he blinked, getting used to the dim light from the lantern nearby. Vio scanned the room, a bedroom belonging to four of the five Links—Red, Blue, Shadow, and himself—and though he observed he was alone in inhabiting the room save for one more occupant, he also saw nothing was out of the ordinary. He still sat atop his top bunk in one of the two sets of bunkbeds in the room, the curtains were drawn for the night, and his surroundings weren't warped and darkened as the dream had been. When he finally cared to look across the room, at the other top bunk and the room's only other inhabitant, he found Red, pressed up against the wall, staring at him. "Red?" he asked softly, confused.

Red's mouth was slightly agape in shock, and he was staring at Vio with a wide-eyed, horrified gaze, shivers racking his body so hard that Vio knew something was wrong. When he opened his mouth to speak once more, Red screeched, "MONSTER!" He abruptly stood on his bed and drew his sword from nowhere, pointing it at him with shaking arms. "GUYS! VIO'S A MONSTER!"

Alarmed and confused, Vio looked around again and immediately caught what was wrong with the picture in the mirror across the room.

His eyes were pitch black.

"_NO!_"

Vio shot up in bed once more, this time in bathed in soft moonlight, hitting his head against the bedpost in his blind terror. His body was soaked to the bone with cold sweat, and he panted hard as he threw his sheets away from him. He was shivering uncontrollably, and his stomach churned as if he were about to violently throw up. He didn't, though, and just coughed, taking deep, shuddering and faintly wheezing breaths.

"…Vio…?" Vio froze, a brief chill of fear dancing up his spine when a raven-haired head poked out from underneath his bed, the bottom bunk's occupant staring at him with drowsy red eyes. "…You alright? You kinda yelled in your sleep."

Relief flooded him instantly as he nodded in reply—it had been a dream after all, there was nothing to worry about. He took a breath and added, a little weakly, "It was just… a really awful dream. Don't worry about it."

Shadow raised an eyebrow, and shrugged. "…Okay, I guess. Nightmares like that don't come often, y'know—and if you start having night terrors, I'm _personally_ going to make sure Green moves in here and you get your own room instead. I need my sleep."

Vio chuckled weakly, partially out of the thrill of relief and partially out of knowing the dark-haired boy didn't mean it, and flopped back onto his mattress, looking at the ceiling that was so close to his own top bunk. He glanced around—Red, across from him, was still peacefully sleeping. Blue, always a heavy sleeper, was curled up under the covers in the bunk beneath Red's. Green didn't sleep in this room, but Vio was willing to bet he was still sound asleep, too, dreaming peaceful dreams so unlike his own. He needed sleep too, he thought. He could have dreams like that. They weren't all nightmares like the one he'd just had.

Impulsively, he quickly turned to look at the mirror once more, only to see that he was deathly pale and still trembling feebly. His eyes were their normal blue. Nothing to worry about.

In the moments before he moved away to tempt himself into sleep, though, he thought he caught a flash of black in his eyes. But he was sure it was the aftermath of the dream—he'd only imagined it.

…Maybe.


End file.
